Edji

I came on your site when I was having problems with my Osho Sannyas and I read the story you told about Robert Adams having the same faraway look and about him confirming Osho’s enlightenment. That hit me like a thunderbolt, because I always trusted Robert Adams transcripts and tapes and my Sannyas exploded again as I realised the Oceanic All-Pervading One speaking through all the Masters and then I made contact with you and grounded it all.

That All-Pervading Oceanic One is you.  I know it because today I entered the site again and you, an Advaita Vedanta Master had just the right information at just the right time yet again.  My conflict  was that I loved Nisargadatta Maharaj so much that I wanted to reject my Osho Sannyas because he criticised him and called him a mere beedie baba.  Robert Adams saved me at that point but I was still not clear.

Then you post Osho on Masters criticising each other for the good of the disciple - the exact conflict I am going through - I'm sure I need not tell you how powerful my realization is.

Thanks again Osho you Edji are truly the Oceanic One leading and directing your Sannyasins.

Why Masters Criticize Each Other by Osho

Beloved Osho I do not understand why enlightened masters are critical of each other. Are they not all working towards the higher good? Are they not different flavors of the same truth? The question you have asked is almost impossible to answer for the simple reason that you are not enlightened yet. You don’t know the ways of the enlightened ones. You don’t know their devices, you don’t know their methods; hence the misunderstanding. An ancient story may help you.... In a great city there were two sweet shops, and one day the owners of both the shops started fighting with each other. Naturally they had no other way to fight, so they started throwing sweets at each other. And the whole city gathered and people were enjoying the sweets that were falling on the street. When two enlightened masters criticize each other it brings tremendous joy to those who can understand. Its taste is just unbelievable. They are not enemies, their fight is not of the ego. Their fight has a totally different context. They fight because they know one thing: that the goal is one, but the paths are many. And each master has to defend his path, knowing perfectly well that other paths are as valid as his. But if he starts saying that all the paths are valid, he will not have the impact, the influence on his people. The journey is long and he needs absolute trust. He is not a philosopher propounding a system of philosophy. His basic concern is that your commitment to the path should be total. To make it total he condemns all other paths, he criticizes all other ways. It is just out of compassion for you. He knows the people on the other path will also reach; and he knows that out of compassion the master on the other path has to criticize him, has to criticize his ways. This is just a simple methodology to protect the disciple from influences that can take him astray. And the mind is very, very clever in going astray. If all the paths are valid, then what is the necessity of commitment? If all the paths are valid, then what is the necessity of being total? If all the paths are valid, then why not travel all the paths, why not go on changing, enjoying different ways, different methods, different sceneries? Each path will pass through different lands; there are paths that will go through the desert, and there are paths which will go through the mountains, and there are paths which will pass through beautiful flowering trees. But if you travel some time on one path and then you change the path, you will have to start again from ABC. Whatever you have learned on one path is invalid on another path, and if you go on keeping it within you it is going to create tremendous confusion. You are already in a great mess; no master wants you to be more confused! Your mind always wants change. It does not know devotion; it loves fashions, its interest is always in some novelty. So it will go on moving from one path to another path, becoming more and more confused because each path has its own language, each path has its own unique methods, and each master is going to defend his path against all the other paths. If you move on many paths you will collect contradictory arguments; you will become so much divided you will not know what to do. And if it becomes your habit to change paths – because the new has a certain attraction for the mind – you will move a few feet on one path, a few feet on another path, but you will never complete the journey. One day Jalaluddin Rumi took all his students, disciples and devotees to a field. That was his way to teach them things of the beyond, through the examples of the world. He was not a theoretician, he was a very practical man. The disciples were thinking, “What could be the message, going to that faraway field... and why can’t he say it here?” But when they reached the field, they understood that they were wrong and he was right. The farmer seemed to be almost an insane man. He was digging a well in the field – and he had already dug eight incomplete wells. He would go a few feet and then he would find that there was no water. Then he would start digging another well... and the same story was continued. He had destroyed the whole field and he had not yet found water. The master, Jalaluddin Rumi, told his disciples, “Can you understand something? If this man had been total and had put his whole energy into only one well, he would have reached to the deepest sources of water long ago. But the way he is going he will destroy the whole field and he will never be able to make a single well. With so much effort he is simply destroying his own land, and getting more and more frustrated, disappointed: what kind of a desert has he purchased? It is not a desert, but one has to go deep to find the sources of water.” He turned to his disciples and asked them, “Are you going to follow this insane farmer? Sometimes on one path, sometimes on another path, sometimes listening to one, sometimes listening to another... you will collect much knowledge, but all that knowledge is simply junk, because it is not going to give you the enlightenment you were looking for. It is not going to lead you to the waters of eternal life.” Masters enjoy tremendously criticizing others. If the others are really enlightened, they also enjoy being criticized. They know that the purpose of both is the same: to protect the vagrant mind of the disciple. To keep him on one track, they have to deny that there is any other path anywhere that can lead you except this one. This is not said out of an egoistic attitude; this is said out of love. This is simply a device to make you committed, devoted. The journey is long, the night is long, and if you go astray you can go on round and round for eternity without finding anything. [...] Gautam Buddha criticized the seers of the Vedas, he criticized the seers of the Upanishads, he criticized Mahavira, he criticized everybody that he could find – Krishna, Rama, all the Hindu gods. Continuously for forty years he was criticizing every old scripture, every old prophet, every old savior. But he was not an enemy of anyone. He was criticizing all those people so that you could be unconditioned, so that you could be freed from the clinging with the past which cannot help you. When a living enlightened being is present, he cannot allow you to remain clinging with the dead, which can only be a weight on your heart but cannot become wings for your freedom. It needs tremendous insight and meditative understanding to have a little glimpse of the world of an enlightened person. I have criticized many: only a few of them were enlightened; most of them were simply frauds. The frauds have to be absolutely exposed to humanity. Even those who were enlightened have become only a tradition, a convention, a dead belief. You have to be freed from their grip also, because they cannot help you, they can only hinder your path. They can become your chains, but they cannot become your freedom. I can become your freedom. I am your freedom. When I am gone I hope there may be still courageous people in the world to criticize me, so that I don’t become a hindrance on anybody’s path. And those who will criticize me will not be my enemies; neither am I the enemy of those whom I have criticized. The working of the enlightened masters just has to be understood. You should remember only one word, and that is compassion – compassion for you, compassion for all those who are still not centered in their being, who are still far away from themselves, who have to be called back home.

I posted a critique of a movie moment between Mooji and one of his students a few weeks ago and received many critical comments of the sort that a real teacher does not criticize other teachers.  This is just nonsense, absolute nonsense.  Even Robert criticized other teachers in private, although never at Satsang.


Below is the result of a 25 minute google search on gurus critical of other gurus.  I checked Osho first as he was well known for being critical of almost all other teachers. J. Krishnamurti was critical of ALL gurus and spiritual teachers. His talks always attacked the entire notion of a guru and the need to a guru. He found them all to be charlatans. 


People who have not actually lived with live teachers have so many concepts about how they should be. Not one teacher would ever live up to most of these concepts, such as a teacher is all-loving, never angry, never makes mistakes (The many who argued that Mooji did not make a mistake with the woman devotee), has perfect health,  etc., etc., and if they do not fit these concepts, they are not a true teacher, or "totally enlightened."  If only more people actually spent time with teachers rather than dealing with Facebook gurus, the spiritual arena would be a lot clearer.


Actually, Osho does provide a good short description below of the true teacher: he will not conform to ANY of your concepts and projections.

Osho on U.G. Krishnamurti and Muktananda

Now, he (U.G. Krishnamurti) missed two pinnacles...(J. Krishnamurti and Ramana) and this is what goes on happening. You have a mind, a certain mind. When you go to a master, you look from your mind. If it fits, you are happy; you start clinging. But that is not going to help -- because it fits, it will strengthen the same mind that you had brought with you. If by chance you come across a real master, nothing is going to fit. He is going to disrupt all your ideas about how a master should be; he is going to sabotage you. He is going to take all expectations. He is to frustrate you, he is to disappoint you in every possible way -- because that is the only way real work can start. And if you still can be with him, then... then you are going to be awakened.

Even a Muktananda can get followers. Once I passed Muktananda's ashram, and just to see what was happening there, I went in. I have never seen such an ordinary man becoming a great religious leader of people. No potential, no achievement, no insight -- if you saw him walking in the street you would not recognize that there is something there. Just plain ordinary -- and not ordinary in the sense of Zen -- just plain ordinary. But even he can find followers.

Osho on Yogi Bhajan:

You must have heard the name of a great sardar yogi in America, Yogi Bhajan. He was just a porter at Delhi Airport. He saw Muktananda coming with seven hundred Americans.... Of course at that time his name was Sardar Harbhajan Singh; he was a poor porter, but certainly he looked far better than Muktananda, more impressive. The idea came into his mind, "If this fool can be a PARAMAHANSA, A SATGURU, etcetera, etcetera, then why should I waste my time just being a porter?" He dropped the job, went to America, and is now the greatest spiritual leader of the Sikh hierarchy in the Western hemisphere.

Just a few days ago, he was back in Delhi with all his disciples. One of his bosses, who is a lover of me, passed by. He saw him sitting on the lawn of the Delhi Taj Mahal Hotel with his disciples. He could not recognize him, he had changed so much. He thought, "A great mahatma."

But Yogi Bhajan is a simple man in that way, far simpler than Muktananda or Nirmala Devi. He sent a disciple to the boss to tell him, "Come to my room. I have something to say to you."

The boss could not understand why the great yogi was calling him; he was thrilled, excited. He went into the room, Yogi Bhajan came in and he said, "Boss, don't you recognize me? I am just that poor Sardar Harbhajan Singh, your porter. Have you forgotten me completely?"
    Then he could recognize the face. He said, "But what has happened? You have become such a great yogi with so many disciples!" Then he told the story... that it is due to Muktananda. The whole credit goes to Muktananda!

Osho on Mother Teresa: Deceiver, charlatan and hyopocri

                                            

Just the other day I received a letter from Mother Teresa. I have no intention of saying anything against her sincerity; whatsoever she wrote in the letter is sincere, but it is unconscious. She is not aware of what she is writing; it is mechanical, it is robot-like. She says, 'I have just received a cutting of your speech. I feel very sorry for you that you could speak as you did. Reference: the Nobel Prize. For the adjectives you add to my name I forgive you with great love.'

She is feeling very sorry for me... I enjoyed the letter! She has not even understood the adjectives that I have used about her. But she is not aware, otherwise she would have felt sorry for herself.

The adjectives that I have used (for her)--- the first is 'deceiver', then 'charlatan' and 'hypocrite'. The deceiver is not only the person who deceives others, in a far more fundamental sense the deceiver is one who deceives himself. Deception begins there. If you want to deceive others, first you have to deceive yourself. But once you have deceived yourself you will never become aware of it unless you are shocked by somebody from the outside, shaken, hammered; you will not become aware that the deception has gone very deep on both sides. It is a double-edged sword.

She is a deceiver in this double-edged sense. First she has been deceiving herself, because meditation can certainly create a life of service, a life of compassion, but a life of service cannot create a life of meditation. Mother Teresa knows nothing of meditation: this is her fundamental deception. She has been serving poor people, orphans, widows, old people, and she has been serving them with good intentions, but the way to hell is full of good intentions! I am not saying that her intentions are bad, but the results don't depend on your intentions.

On Jiddhu Krishnamurti:

    J. Krishnamurti has been saying that there is no need for a Master. He is right -- and absolutely wrong also. He is right because when you become awakened, you also know that there was no need, you were dreaming. When you become alert, dreaming stops, and then you can't feel what the need was.' It was just a dream, I could have shaken myself out of it.' But it is an afterthought. Even Krishnamurti needed Annie Besant and Leadbeater -- he had his own Masters.

It is an afterthought. When a thing happens, then you can always feel: I could have done it. But when it has not happened, you cannot even think because your thinking will also be a part of your dream.

A Master is needed when you are asleep. When you become awakened, you also will think a Master was not needed. Then for you, of course, the Master is not needed. But then many will be deluded because many egoists will surround you, as you will find. You cannot find anywhere else such a mass of egoists as you will find near Krishnamurti, because the moment the egoist hears that no Master is needed, he feels very happy. He says: Right! He always thinks he is the Ultimate; no need to surrender to anybody because ego resists surrender. And this man says that no Master is needed -- egoists feel very happy. Around Krishnamurti you will find all sorts of egoists because it seems very good, very convenient -- no need to surrender.
 

    J. Krishnamurti, a man who struggled for ninety years -- his last words have some great meaning. One of my friends was present there. Krishnamurti lamented, he lamented his whole life. He lamented that "people have taken me as entertainment. They come to listen to me...." There are people who have listened to him for fifty years continually, and still they are the same people as had come for the first time to listen to him. Naturally it is annoying and irritating that the same people... Most of them I know, because J. Krishnamurti used to come only once a year for two or three weeks to Bombay, and slowly, slowly all his followers in Bombay became acquainted with me. They all were sad about this point: What should be done? How can we make Krishnamurti happy?

The reason was that Krishnamurti only talked, but never gave any devices (Methods) through which whatever he was talking about became an experience. It was totally his fault. Whatever he was saying was absolutely right, but he was not creating the right climate, the right milieu in which it could become a seed. Of course he was very much disappointed with humanity, and that there was not a single person who had become enlightened through his teachings. His teachings have all the seeds, but he never prepared the ground. 

    (My Comment: This same argument can be used against all the neoAdvaitins who also claim no teacher or surrender is necessary. They really have no method or preparation of the student for awakening. All that they have is "just talking.")

U.G. Krishnamurti on Jiddhu Krishnamurti and Osho:  Osho is a pimp, Jiddhu Krishnamurti the greatest fraud of the 20th Century

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHw6wfWQ630

Osho on Muktananda again and on Muktananda's teacher, Nityananda:

I know many people, like Muktananda, who have nothing to give. It is a miracle that Muktananda can also become a guru. But still if somebody is following Muktananda, I will not say don’t follow him. I will say go headlong. Because that is the only way to find out, to figure it out. I will say, ‘Go headlong with open eyes; maybe this is how your life is going to grow.’ Nothing is wrong in it. Why be so much afraid?

One learns from fools as much as from wise people, and one learns from pseudo-gurus as much as from authentic gurus. They are part of one phenomenon. In fact, you get that which you deserve. Now there are a few people who deserve Muktananda. What to do? They have earned Muktananda through their lives; many lives of karmas and they have earned Muktananda. Now who am I or who are you to prevent them? Why? They deserve, that is their growth, they have to pass through it.

Osho on Nityananda Maharaj: 

One of the great Hindu monks, Nityananda, the master of Swami Muktananda — Muktananda was very well known in America. Nityananda had only one unique quality: his belly. I don’t think in the whole history of man anybody had such a big belly! When he lies down you can see a strange shape.

When I saw him I told him, “You don’t have a belly, your belly has a head and legs, because that is your major part!” But he is worshipped, he is thought to be enlightened. And his belly is proof enough. And now this man cannot be celibate: he is eating so much that he will create sexual energy. What is he going to do with that energy? Anything that he will do will be a perversion; and the easiest way is always homosexuality, because if he is found with a woman, all his respectability and great sainthood will disappear. He has to be with a man, and then nobody suspects.

"A devotee (who wishes to remain anonymous) is addressing Infinity's claim that Robert Adams never meant for his teachings and transcripts to be free, head on in this new website and if you have any quotes to add, please send me the specifics (transcript date) and I'll pass them on as this information will be used in any legal defense or countersuit":

http://the-teaching-must-be-free.weebly.com/

 

Part 1 - The Nature of Enlightenment



Part 2 - A Guided Meditation



Part 3 - What is Meant by Illusion?

Infinity Institute attacks again!


Ten months after complying with Infinity's previous attorney's demand to remove Robert Adams transcripts and audio recordings of Satsangs made by me during actual satsangs, Infinity found a new attorney to launch a frivolous attack on our new website, which contains absolutely no material of Robert's---none, Nada.  This is just proof of their single minded effort to harass me off the Internet with still further false allegations.


Their letter:

Re:        Infinity Institute v. Muzika, et al.

Mr. Muzika:

Please be advised that XXXXXX represents the Non Profit Infinity Institute, Inc. ("Infinity Institute") in intellectual property matters. As such, please direct any correspondence to me, rather than the Infinity Institute.

As you are aware, the Infinity Institute is the owner of the following U.S. Copyright Registrations, which are attached collectively hereto as Exhibit A (collectively "Infinity Registrations"):

Registration No. TXu001366520 — "Silence of the heart: early works" Registration No. TXu000520922 — "Silence of the heart"

Registration No. TXu001190209 "Satsang with Robert Adams: vol. 1[-31"

Registration No. TXu000549212 — "Satsang with Robert Adams: vol. 2" Registration No. TXu000797272 — "The Silence of the heart: vol. 3"

It has come to our attention that despite numerous requests from our client, and Robert Adams himself, to cease using the Infinity Institute's works protected by the Infinity Registrations, you continue to illegally copy and publicly display such works without permission. Some examples of your unauthorized uses and display of our client's works can be found at www.wearesentience.com (a domain name registered to you), your Google blog, http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com, your video site www.wearesentience.org, and your partners site www.rajivkapur.com. These websites contain misappropriated audio and written transcripts of Robert Adams, which are now freely available for download. Your wrongful misappropriation and distribution of this material has prevented the non-profit Infinity Institute from publishing Robert Adams' works in the manner and format he personally established and approved prior to his passing.

Your continued misappropriation of the Infinity Registrations constitutes copyright infringement under 17 U.S.0 § 501, et seq., which entitles the Infinity Institute to an injunction against further copying, use, and display of our client's aforementioned works, profits, attorneys' fees, and costs. Additionally, your use of Mr. Adams' likeness on your infringing sites and blog also constitutes violations of at least 17 U.S.0 § 501, et seq., as well as Nevada's right of publicity statutes. See NRS 597.770, et seq.

In light of the foregoing, the Infinity Institute demands that you immediately cease all use of the Infinity Institute's works protected by the Infinity Registrations and remove all materials and links having to do with Robert Adams or the Infinity Institute from your www.wearesentience.com website, your Google blog, http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com/, your video site www.wearesentience.org, and your partners site www.rajivkapur.com. (Your documented electronic signature appears on hundreds of worldwide websites as the source of the infringing copyright works of Robert Adams which you link to on your present site.) This includes, but is not limited to, all works protected by the Infinity Registrations, all images of Robert Adams, and all mention of Mr. Adams and the Infinity Institute.

Your actions have interrupted the further publications of the works of Robert Adams per his sole established format as owner and creator of said works. Additionally we demand that you provide an accounting of all funds acquired from your original posted request for monies for Robert Adams transcripts on your sites and the use, copying, and display of the Infinity Institute's works and Registrations to this office no later than September 2, 2011.

Please act accordingly, and call me with any questions. This letter does not constitute a waiver of any rights belonging to our client.

AS YOU CAN SEE, THEY CANNOT SITE EVEN ONE ALLEGED "MISAPPROPRIATION" BECAUSE IF YOU SEARCH THE SITE, NOT ONE TRANSCRIPT OR AUDIO FILE OF ROBERT'S CAN BE FOUND ANYWHERE.  THEIR CHARGES ARE TOTAL FABRICATION.  NOT ONLY THAT, THEY CLAIM COPYRIGHT ON ALL PHOTOS OF ROBERT TAKEN ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME.  THE INFINITY WEBSITE EVEN APPEARS TO CLAIM THAT ROBERT IS STILL ALIVE!

THE NEW WEARESENTIENCE WEBSITE CONTAINS ONLY MY TEACHINGS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF MY LIFE AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH ROBERT. YET THEY DEMAND I NOT EVEN MENTION ROBERT ADAMS ON THIS BLOG OR THE WAS WEBSITE.

Dialogues from the last satsang.


#1 - Trusting and Believing in Yourself




#2 - Doing Real Self-Inquiry




#3 - Who's Looking?




#4 - You Can Only Know Your Own Mind

Watch this Mooji video.  Tell me what is wrong.

http://youtu.be/kppej85gncQ

This woman is in great pain.  She obviously does not have much one on one contact with Mooji, as she is telling of this intimate pain in front of many people, focused only on him, ignoring the crowd.

She tells Mooji that there is something in her that feels, which she calls “it,” that does not need Mooji anymore, that she has grown independent, and this is tearing her apart.  She tells Mooji that he was her God, best friend, her everything, but something does not need him anymore. Then she says, "I don't need you to do this (spiritual work?).  My feeling is she thinks this "not needing" will destroy the love she has in its greatness and vastness of need, and she mourns the loss.

Yet, what does Mooji say, he goes old Muzika on her and says with a little laugh, “That will save a lot of airline tickets.”  He is speaking to the crowd, making a joke, and not hearing her--JUST AS I HAVE NOT HEARD SO MANY OF YOU IN THE PAST. 


Watch the video and ponder on this, especially the crowd's rather over-the-top laughing at her distress. Not only is it inappropriate, it borders on a brutal refutation of her distress. But Mooji ignores the crowd's cruel laughter, and even tells her the crowd is loving her independence! He sides with the crowd.

Here Mooji missed helping her in three places: The joke about airplane tickets; his telling her that the laughing people were happy for her; then giving analogies rather than addressing deeper issues. I was appalled when I heard this laughter, and disappointed with his response.  All that he had to do was hig her and say, "I still love you and you still love me."

He said to her that the crown was happy for her. They were laughing. But if they had been genuinely happy they would have been more silent. Their laughing was from their own defenses against recognizing deep longing and neediness feelings in themselves.

I think they felt justified on the surface of consciousness to laugh because they felt she was fooling herself and her crying was a sign that she was very attached.  But she was really saying that losing the attachment was also losing her deep love for Mooji, as well as mourning the loss of her spiritual infancy, and it was extremely painful for her. This was never addressed, not her pain acknowledged.

He could have addressed the issue directly telling her that feeling independent and not needing me does not harm the love you have for me or me for you.  In fact, now that you feel you no longer need me, your love can grow and flower, AND you now own it as your own, it is no longer static, like a guardrail, and it is a love in you for me, without a need for me. I, as your teacher, grow less important, but I as an equal,  can be loved deeper in different ways, newer ways.


You will no longer feel compelled to run to me, but will come freely from within yourself at your own time and pace. What freedom!

Nor does anyone know how comfortable she with his explanations or the with crowd because she is shown only in the first 1/5 of the film, and then she was fixated on talking to him and ignored them.

This is very subtle. Watch the video again. Put yourself in her shoes, experience her torture, listen to the crowd's laughter. I really could not believe their laughter.


Really, Mooji failed her three times and it was probably because of the group setting.  He did not go to her and hug her, or ask her to come to him. OR, maybe Mooji just didn't get it, like me.

Something happened this weekend--something wonderful.


I had a fight with someone I care for very much regarding my failure to trust her about her assessment of a situation. She walked away in an angry huff. A few days later we talked.  Deeply!


Something happened. My heart opened up. I had this bizarre experience where it felt like I had invisible feelers emmanating directly from my heart reaching out into the world. But my mind created an image of these feelers and made them into tennacles, like something from a the science fiction movie, The Thing.  Each seemed to have an independent motivation and each was "feeling" for something in the environment.


When I talked to her, it was from an entirely different viewpoint. I was "looking" into the world from my heart, not my eyes.  I saw she had been entirely right about something I had missed. Then I realized I had already known the truth about the situation, but discounted it and tried to cover it over to in order to smooth the waters. She felt totally abandoned and incredulous that I had not even expressed as true what she knew to be true.


I would never have been consciously aware had this break not occurred. I did know it, but my mind discounted what it knew to be true and discounted why she should feel so strongly about something I saw as so small a thing.


But now I see so clearly. I now function from my heart as if it were the primary source of my knowing the world.


What a miracle!


I can now see truth with unerring accuracy. It feels like wisdom--at least about the human condition manifesting day to day, which is entirely different from walking into the absolute, or practicing self inquiry.  However, it is very related to abiding in and loving the I Am.  It is so powerful and so knowing, and if you befriend it, and have angels who point the way with you, it reveals a world of breathtaking clarity and wisdom.


This insight has nothing to do with the absolute, but purely about being a human in the world of humanity. I had missed so much, I was blind but now I see.


I still feel this opening, like a layer of defenses has been torn away from my imaginary body and I can "see" into the world in a new way, formerly covered by wishful thinking, conventionality and generally not paying attention. 


I can also see clearly where I need to go, what I need to do.  Defenses have been dropped, revealing this is but the beginning of yet another long journey.

Mia Culpa


Our Sangha now has 90 members. I get an average of 10 or more emails a day from sangha members and another 3-5 from those who read the blog or websites. Sometimes I get many more than that.


I understand many feel I do not hear them or respond to them and that is true. I really don't "feel" emails that much unless I know the person well.


If you feel I am not seeing you or responding as to what you need, schedule a Skype or phone appointment by sending me an email.  Look, I have been a teacher for less than a year.  This is all new to me and I am trying as hard as I can within my limitations as a crusty old fart.

Over the next few months I plan on explaining the teachings of classical Advaita by providing an exegesis of the primary writings of Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ranjit Maharaj. I find their writings express concepts closer to my experience and understanding that even those of Robert Adams and Ramana Maharshi in that Nisargadatta and Ranjit make very explicit the relationship between consciousness and the absolute, the manifest and the unmanifest, and also the relationship between consciousness as manifest through apparently discrete individuals and the universal consciousness.


I have to warn you that all concepts are false, that reality cannot be captured by the mind in any way. So you have to consider what they say as "pointers," or "mental training wheels" that guide and direct both your understanding and experiences, until even they are taken from you.


Ranjit, and his teacher Siddharameshwar Maharaj, spend a great deal of time talking about the nature consciousness, and the structures which make up the self. These things you never hear from the Neoadvaitins or other modern teachers. These are the things that were conveyed to Rajiv through me that led to his awakening. Rajivwas able to awaken using these pointers and concepts, although the concepts are not really expressive of anything true.


I quote from the introduction by Jean Dunn to Consciousness and the Absolute the entirety of Nisargadatta's method:


"He (Nisargadatta) said one must find out what the body is, where it came from, study it with detachment, watch it without judging. One soon sees it's like a robot which has been programmed by others. We are to turn within to that which lets us know that we are, to become one with that (i.e., knowing and the knower).


"Abiding in the "I Amness" (or consciousness, which is pure love), that consciousness itself would give us all the answers. At the present time, consciousness is what we are, not personal consciousness, but impersonal, universal consciousness. In the course of time, the consciousness will show us that we are not even this, but we are eternal absolute, unborn, and undying."


Nisargadatta requires us to ponder his words, reflect on their meaning, and to see for ourselves whether what he says is true or not. It requires a remarkable degree of honesty and self truthfulness to take us beyond concepts and especially conventions and protocols in our everyday life. We need to be free from convention in every way in that it takes this kind of radical truth mentality to distinguish between the true and the conventional.


On page 1, Nisargatatta is asked, "How does a jnani see the world?"


He Responds:


"The jnani is aware of the origin and value of consciousness, this beingness, which has spontaneously dawned on him. The same consciousness plays a multitude of roles, some happy, some unhappy; but whatever the roles, the jnani is merely the seer of them. The roles have no effect on the jnani.


"All your problems are body mind problems. Even so you cling to that body. Since you identify with the body mind, you follow certain polite modes of expression when you talk. I do not. I might embarrass you; you may not be able to take what I say. I have no sense of propriety or boundaries.


"You (on the other hand) are bound by your own concepts and notions. Actually, you love only this sense of "I"; you do everything because of this. You are not working for anybody, nor for the nation, but only for this sense of "I" which you love so much.


"All (of your) activities go on, but they are only entertainment. The waking and deep sleep states come and go spontaneously. Through the sense of "I", you spontaneously feel like working. But find out if the sense of "I" is real or unreal, permanent or impermanent. 


"The "I" which appears is unreal. How unreal it is I have proven. The moment the "I" is proven unreal, who is it who knows that the "I" is unreal? This knowledge within you that knows the "I" is unreal, that knowledge which knows change, must itself be changeless, permanent."


You see, you are the triumvirate of knowledge, knowing, and the knower. Knowledge and knowing occur and are expressed in the I am, but the knower stands behind that as a mystery, itself unknown, as it is not an object, but consciousness unmanifest.

AMENDED--August 13, 2011 Satsang--AMENDED

The Manifest and the Unmanifest

Dear Edji,

Last nights satsang was, without out a doubt, the most powerful one to date for me.  I had quite a headache through most of the day on Saturday, but that disappeared very quickly when satsang started.  Right from the start, I felt a sense of peace, calm and tranquility, the like of which I have not experienced for quite some time and, even then, very rarely.  I was at peace with the world and the world was at peace with me.

As the first chant started and I began to sink and go deeper, I experienced not a sinking, but rather an upwelling of what I can only describe as a huge, expanding void which totally engulfed me and which I became a part of.   It felt very tranquil and nurturing.  A very comfortable place to be.  The physical body and the sensations of that body ceased to exist and there was just a deep sense of being.  A knowing arose that the entire universe, all existence, everything, was passing through me but, at the same time there was no me, just an awareness that I wasn’t just part of it, I was it, I was the universe, I was all existence, all that was. I felt connected to everyone in the satsang and felt a love for everyone there.  This soon spread beyond the satsang to encompass everything.  We were all one. Yet at the same time individual parts of the one.  Hard to describe in words.

This happened very quickly and prolonged through the first two chants and, while I came out of it for periods, it set the tone for the rest of the satsang.  I heard and felt the chants more clearly than I ever done so before.  It was as though I had not heard them before but was hearing them for the first time with a clarity that had not existed.  I had felt them within me before, not just hearing them with my ears, but now I wasn’t just hearing them internally, they were part of me but there was no me, with no blockages and just the pure essence and vibration of the chants.   

A truly powerful and gratifying experience indeed.   For that I thank you and everyone else in the sangha for making all of this possible.  We are all one, so let’s grow together.

Deep love and gratitude.

Alan

Ryan:
Hi Edji,
    Wow! Tonight's Satsang was so powerful! Thank you!! The only times I've felt an 'expansive' feeling are during Satsang, and tonight it was very pervasive during the beginning of Satsang. You said go deeper than you ever have before, and I think I did!
    The sense of presence filled me more prominently than I've previously experienced. It was strange. I could still feel various parts of my body, however the notable thing was the expanded sense of presence swallowed the sensations of the body, sort of containing them and subduing them, and in the case of my arms making their sensation disappear! It felt like the sense of presence was 'closer' than the bodily sensations which are usually at the forefront of experience in waking state, and therefore obscured their normal perception. The experience lasted from the end of Govinda, through Jyote se Jyote, to the shortly before you began speaking.
    I just want to thank you for Satsang. There is something so special about our Sangha coming together the way it has. I think Alan summed it up perfectly tonight: the more our love grows within the Sangha, the more intense and deep Satsang becomes. I can only imagine what it will be like in the future if our love continues to grow!
   Thank you again for everything, Edji!


K:
    Your satsang today was incredible. I can't find words... I had to lie on the floor and try to recover enough to "act normal" around my family in the afternoon.
    I agree that this was the most powerful satsang so far and I am so grateful that you are sharing this with us.


J:
Tortured by Love


    Where are you my Beloved,
That this aching is still within this heart?
    I have looked for you under every leaf,
Behind every cloud,
In every face I see.
    How can you be so elusive?
How can you escape my grasping?
You mystify me.
    You come to me like a haunting presence.
I'm sure I hear your footsteps.
I open my eyes
And lo, no one is there.
But I know you were.
You were careless and left your presence.
I close my eyes
and you repeat this game again and again.
    Why do you torture me such?
My heart is aching.
My flesh is on fire.
My mind is crazed.
How long my Beloved can you deny me?
How do you bear to torture me so?
    Is your tenderness not provoked
By the ocean of tears I have poured at your feet?
Is your compassion not arrested
by the continual crying out of your name?
    How, please tell me Beloved,
How can you deny me?

AMENDED-Material Added

I offer nothing new regarding practice. Robert taught self inquiry, using the question "Who am I?," And many other methods--anything to get people to stop their worldly activity and look inside to find their source. People would come to him sometimes and say, some people say you don't need a method, that a method implies effort, and effort implies ego. To them Robert would respond, "Then wake up!" This is the method I used for many many years without much success. By the time I met Robert, I had long since dropped it; then my sole practice was just to stay near Robert.

Nisargadatta outlined a different method, which was discovering one's sense of I am, the love to be, to see it in all of its colors, fragrances and intensities, and to love the I am, to love to be. He told his own story in his spiritual autobiography, "Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization." In fact, this is closer to my own method of merely laying down, listening to sacred music, and going into myself in silence.

Yet so many take Advaita to be a philosophy and method of not feeling anything, having no emotions, of knowing everything is an illusion. That's why they adopt Advaita, and that's why they reject the method of loving oneself, stating that the "I am" is a concept. This is what Ramesh Balsekar said. In fact, this is what I said for many years.


It is true, often people use spirituality and spiritual methods to escape from negative emotions or self-critical thought structures. I even wrote a book on it, as well as a couple academic papers, especially how Buddhism can and is used sometimes to escape from psychological pain. These writings can be found in the Psychoanalysis section of our website, http://wearesentience.com.

Indeed the "I am" is a concept. In fact all consciousness is an illusion, but until this is your experience--that it is an illusion--the I am is an experience that can lead to becoming fully alive in happiness, bliss, and whole range of human emotions.

However, even the bliss is a part of the knowingness of existence, consciousness. What is more fundamental? What Nisargadatta calls the absolute, Ranjit Maharaj, who shared the same master, called "Reality." This is the mystery that is me and is everyone, and it is not consciousness or the manifest.

Here's what Ranjit stated in response to the question, "When I contemplate my real nature, the "I Am," a feeling of love without cause pervades me. Is this feeling correct or is it still an illusion?"

Ranjit: 


"It is the bliss of the self. You feel the presence of "I am." You forget everything, the concepts and illusion. It is a non-conditioned state. This bliss appears when you forget the object, but in the bliss there is still a little touch of the self. After all, it is still a concept. 


"When you are tired of the outside world you want to be alone, to be in yourself. It is the experience of a higher state, but still of the mind. The self has no pleasure or displeasure. It is without the "I" sense. The complete forgetfulness of illusion means that nothing is, nothing exists. It is still there, but for you it has no reality. That is what is called realization, or self-knowledge. It is the realization of self without self.

"All that exists, all that you see, the objects of your perception, all that is, is due to reality. There, ignorance and knowledge do not exist. They are not. So what expression can you give to them? When you give them expression, that means there is something experienced. As soon as you feel the least existence, it is still ignorance, and you are away from yourself. 


"You may feel love, and that is okay, but after all, it is still a state, and a state is always conditioned. The non-conditioned is stateless. It is the experience of the nonexistence of illusion. This is very subtle, and then both ignorance and knowledge don't remain. It is difficult to understand, but if you really  you will get to that stateless state. It is and always has been, but you don't know it, that is the difficulty. There's not a single point where reality is not. You experience existence through objects, but all that is nothing. It is omniscient, but you cannot see it. Why? Because you are the reality itself, so how can you see yourself? To see your face you need a mirror."

You see, this is a more detached attitude then found in Pradeeps’ "Nisargadatta Gita" or Nisargadatta's Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization. However, this is more along the lines of what Robert taught. A place beyond bliss and ecstasy, completely self-contained, wanting nothing, and as Robert pointed, peace beyond understanding.

Ranjit continues: "If you understand that you are not the body, your consciousness becomes universal. All limitation disappears. If you break the vase, the space contained in the vase becomes as big as the space of the room, and if you break down the walls of the house, it becomes vast cosmic space. It is  all together as one. In the same way, if the consciousness of the ego is broken, then you become universal consciousness, the "all." But here you must understand that this consciousness is also illusion, or ignorance. In effect, ignorance is the source of consciousness or knowledge. 

"So the source of consciousness itself is the forgetting, or the ignorance of reality. You become the total creation, the consciousness or knowledge of the world, but this is still illusion. The ego that becomes the universal consciousness is the worst of egos. "I am the creator of the world, I am omnipotent, etc." But this creator only creates illusion. So what is the use of it? Knowledge creates more illusion. This understanding will ripen with the help of the master, and this knowledge itself will be absorbed in reality."

Ranjit isn't nearly as poetic as Nisargadatta. But this is what I see. States come to me and they go. I am not touched. All the world come to me, and I am not touched. I know not what I am, only that the drama is not me, even though I can choose to be in and even identify with the drama. My fundamental knowledge which is experienced within the I am, is that I am not this way. I am beyond it entirely, in an entirely different dimension, or the "Unmanifest," unborn, silence.

Nisargadatta stated the entirety of I Am in a nutshell:


"Before beingness was there, look at that, the that state. That maya is so powerful that it gets you completely wrapped up in it. I am means "I am," "I love to be." It has no identity except love. That knowledge of "I am" is the greatest foe and the greatest friend. Although it might be your greatest enemy, if you propitiate it properly, it will turn around and lead you to the highest state."


You see, although I am teaching one to locate and love the I am, including the use of objects within the I am, within consciousness, to kindle the fires of love, you have to keep in mind that the I am is the gate, not the entirety of the unfolding.